"No two Christmases are exactly alike; are they, Martha? Last year your daughter was with you. Now she is married and gone far away. Last Christmas my brother was at home. He is not coming this year."

"I found that out long ago, Miss Hallam. First we missed father, then mother; then it was a brother or a sister, or a child more or less; then my husband went, and last year, Sarah Ann."

"Will you and Ben come to the hall to-night?"

"Why--mebbe we will."

"Ben has quite got over his trouble?"

"Ah, Mary helped him a deal."

"Mary will get a good husband."

"She will that. Ben Craven is good at home. You may measure a man by his home conduct, it's t' right place to draw t' line, you may depend upon it. Tak' a bit o' Christmas loaf, and go your ways back now, dearies, for we'll be heving a storm varry soon."

They went merrily out, and about fifty yards away met Mr. North. He also looked very happy, and his lips were moving, as if he was silently singing. In fact, he was very happy; he had been giving gifts to the poor, and the blessing of many "ready to perish" was upon him. He thanked Phyllis and Elizabeth for the Christmas offerings sent to his chapel; and told them of a special service that was to be held on the first Sunday of the new year. "I should like you to be there, Miss Fontaine," he said, "for I think this peculiar service of Methodism is not held in America."

His happiness had conquered his timidity. He looked almost handsome, as he gave them at parting "G.o.d's blessing," and the wish for a "Merry Christmas."

"I wish you would ask him to dinner, Elizabeth?"

"Certainly, I will. I should like to do it."

They hurried after him, and overtook him, with his hand upon a cottage gate.

"Will you come and dine with us, Mr. North? It is a gala night at the hall, and many of your people will be there. They will like to see you, and you will add to our pleasure also."

"Thank you, Miss Hallam. It will be very pleasant to me. My duty will be finished in half an hour, then I will follow you."

His face was as happy and as candid as a child's, as he lifted his hat, and entered the cottage garden. Elizabeth involuntarily watched him. "He seems to tread upon air. I don't believe he remembers he is still in the body. He looks like a gentleman to-day."

"He is always a gentleman, Elizabeth. I am told he has about L70 a year. Who but a gentleman could live upon that and look as he does?

Ben Craven has double it, but who would call Ben a gentleman?"

"There is a singular thing about the appearance of Methodist preachers, Phyllis; they all look alike. If you see a dozen of them together, the monotony is tiresome. The best of them are only larger specimens of the same type--are related to the others as a crown piece is related to a shilling. You know a Methodist minister as soon as you see him."

"That is just as it ought to be. They are the Methodist coin, and they bear its image and its superscription. The disciples had evidently the same kind of 'monotony.' People who were not Nazarenes 'took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.' But if this is a fault, surely the English clergy have it in a remarkable degree. I know an Episcopal clergyman just as soon and just as far as I can see him."

"Their cloth--"

"O, it is not only their 'cloth.' That long surtout, and nicely adjusted white tie, and general smoothness and trimness, is all very distinctive and proper; but I refer quite as much to that peculiar self-containedness of aspect and that air of propriety and polish which surrounds them like an atmosphere."

"Now we are quits, Phyllis, and I think we had better walk faster.

See what large flakes of snow are beginning to fall!"

The squire had reached home first, and was standing at the door to meet them, his large rosy face all smiles. There was a roaring, leaping fire in the hall, and its trophies of chase and war were wreathed and crowned with fir and box and holly. Branches of mistletoe hung above the doors and the hearth-stone; and all the rooms were equally bright.

The servants tripped about in their best clothes, the men with bits of hawthorn berries and box on their breast, the women with sprigs of mistletoe. There was the happiest sense of good humor and good-will, the far-away echo of laughter, the tinkling of gla.s.s and china and silver, the faint delicious aroma, through opening doors, of plentiful good cheer.

"Whativer kept you so long, dearies? Run away and don yourselves, and make yourselves gay and fine. Christmas comes but once a year. And don't keep dinner waiting; mind that now! T' rector's here, and if there's any thing that puts him about, it's waiting for his dinner."

"We asked Mr. North, father; he will be here soon."

"I'm uncommon glad you asked him. Go your ways and get your best frocks on. I'll go to t' door to meet him."

In about an hour the girls came down together, Phyllis in a pale gray satin, with delicate edgings of fine lace. It fitted her small form to perfection, close to the throat, close to the wrists, and it had about it a slight but charming touch of puritanism. There was a white j.a.ponica in her hair, and a flame-colored one at her throat, and these were her only ornaments. Elizabeth wore a plain robe of dark blue velvet, cut, as was the fashion in those days, to show the stately throat and shoulders. Splendid bracelets were on her arms, and one row of large white pearls encircled her throat. She looked like a queen, and Phyllis wished Richard could have seen her.

"She'll be a varry proper mistress o' Hallam-Croft," thought the squire, with a pa.s.sing sigh. But--his eyes dwelt with delight upon Phyllis. "Eh!" he said, "but thou art a bonny la.s.s! T' flowers that bloom for thee to wear are t' happiest flowers that blow, I'll warrant thee."

After dinner the squire and his daughter went to the servants' hall to drink "loving cup" at their table, and to give their Christmas gifts. The rector, in the big chair he loved, sat smoking his long pipe. Mr. North, with a face full of the sweetest serenity and pleasure, sat opposite, his thin white hands touching each other at all their finger tips, and his clear eyes sometimes resting on the blazing fire, and sometimes drifting away to the face of Phyllis, or to that of the rector.

"You have been making people happy all day, Mr. North?"

"Yes; it has been a good day to me. I had twelve pounds to give away.

They made twelve homes very happy. I don't often have such a pleasure."

"I have noticed, Mr. North," said the rector, "that you do very little pastoral visiting."

"That is not my duty."

"I think it a very important part of my duty."

"You are right. It is. You are a pastor."

"And you?"

"I am a preacher. My duty is to preach Christ and him crucified. To save souls. There are others whose work it is to serve tables, and comfort and advise in trouble and perplexity."

"But you must lose all the personal and social influence of a pastor."

"If I had desired personal and social influence, I should hardly have chosen the office of a Methodist preacher. 'Out of breath pursuing souls,' was said of John Wesley and his pretorian band of helpers.

I follow, as best I can, in their footsteps. But though I have no time for visiting, it is not neglected."

"Yes?" said the rector, inquiringly.

"Our cla.s.s-leaders do that. John Dawson and Jacob Hargraves and Hannah Sarum are the cla.s.s-leaders in Hallam and West Croft. You know them?"

"Yes."

"They are well read in the Scriptures. They have sorrowed and suffered.

They understand the people. They have their local prejudices and feelings. They have been in the same straits. They speak the same tongue. It is their duty to give counsel and comfort, and material help if it is needed; to watch over young converts; to seek those that are backsliding; to use their influence in every way for such of the flock as are under their charge. John Dawson has twenty-two men and Jacob Hargraves nineteen men under their care. Hannah Sarum has a very large cla.s.s. No one pastor could do as regards meat and money matters what these three can do. Besides, the wealthy, the educated, and the prosperous cannot so perfectly enter into the joys and sorrows of the poor. If a woman has a drunken husband, or a disobedient child, she will more readily go to Hannah for comfort and advice than to me; and when James Baker was out of work, it was John Dawson who loaned him five pounds, and who finally got him a job in Bowling's mill. I could have done neither of these things for him, however willing I might have been."

"I have never understood the office, then. It is a wonderful arrangement for mutual help."

"It gives to all our societies a family feeling. We are what we call ourselves--brothers and sisters;" and, with a smile, he stretched out his hand to take the one which Phyllis, by some sympathetic understanding, offered him.

"There was something like it in the apostolic Church?"

"Yes; our cla.s.s-leader is the apostolic diaconate. The apostles were preachers, evangelists, hasting here and there to save souls. The deacons were the pastors of the infant churches. I preach seven times a week. I walk to all the places I preach at. It is of more importance to me that men are going to eternal destruction, than that they are needing a dinner or a coat."